Celebrities Get Twitter Buzzing for Papa John's and Coke

Sometimes all it takes is a celebrity to get people tweeting about a brand, whether that star is a spokesperson or not.

While Papa John's (No. 7) has been making headlines because of its CEO's announcement that he may cut employee hours because of the Affordable Care Act and because it is facing a $250 million spam lawsuit, on Twitter its lift last week can be attributed partly to commercials starring company spokesman Peyton Manning. As always, you can see one of those spots by clicking "More Info" in the Papa John's entry.

But tweets really picked up for the brand Tuesday night when Colorado -- where Mr. Manning plays for the Broncos -- passed legislation making pot legal. Turns out, Mr. Manning had invested in 21 Papa John's franchises two weeks prior to the election. Seeing a future where stoners inhabit every corner of the state, some people tweeted that his investment was "pure genius."

Another brand getting a big lift from a celebrity last week is Coca-Cola, according to our data from our editorial partner Bluefin Labs. While the brand is running one commercial, most of the volume came from a Lady Gaga tweet about sending her little monsters "hamburgers, fries, and coke." It was re-tweeted enough to give Coca Cola the third-biggest Twitter-chatter lift of any brand.

What's remarkable is that Lady Gaga has no affiliation with the soft drink; her tweet was completely organic. But it's not surprising that her message was retweeted. She was the first person to surpass 20 million followers on Twitter and she often uses her profile to interact with her fans, making them very engaged with whatever she says.